A Woman's Journey With Rare Disease

Encouraging News Regarding Organ Donation & Transplants

An article published today in USA Today was welcome news for me to read. The latest statistics from UNOS are also really encouraging. I think we’re finally starting to see some small dent in the donor shortage.

More people needing transplants are receiving them, & we are obtaining more donors. We are also closing some gaps in ethnic disparities in transplants, too.

How much of a dent are we making in these issues? It’s hard to know for sure, but it’s definitely a great start to build on.

If even only a handful of lives are saved each year from dying on the wait list, that’s still a marked improvement.

The USA Today article does a good job of breaking down some of these issues & why these statistics are so important.

I know some centers are working to become high volume centers. They want & intend to do more transplants annually going forward from what they had been able to do in the past.

I’m sure some of the positive momentum in these statistics & the interest in centers striving to do more transplants could also be related to transplant innovations & advances outside of a boosted donor pool.

These advances just aren’t limited to surgery, but are also related to procurement & preservation techniques. Those advances are equally important because they ensure the viability of more organs for transplants.

(I think it equates to more than centers trying to recruit more high caliber surgeons with expertise to actually perform more transplants, but I’m sure that is also a small part in the increase in statistics as well).

My center is one of these centers actively trying to increase their volumes, for which I’m grateful.

Doing so means that my wait (which they estimate to be at 6 months after I list), might actually turn out be less.

This link at UNOS has a breakdown of how many transplants annually were performed in 2015 by organ type. This link actually has the number of waiting list candidates by organ type.

This not only makes me happy but gives me hope that in the future if someone I know needs a transplant in the future, it will be easier for them to be able to have one, at least from a statistical standpoint. (The less challenges & barriers standing in people’s way, the better.)

It is the donor side that needs OUR help every day …. write to your representatives and give them your ideas (opt-out?), talk to your friends & family ad nauseum about being donors, and probably most importantly, help, volunteer, assist your OPO in any way you can. At one point I didn’t think I could help because I was too weak … found out later that they had projects that I could have done at home, on my time with no pressure.

I’ve done that with PA legislation that’s come up and opportunities that arise can’t agree more about helping the donor side. But still it’s encouraging to see such positive momentum in transplant as a whole – wasn’t always that way

A former classmate’s husband just went through a heart transplant last week Tuesday at the Mayo. I challenged him to a walker race whenever he feels up to it. I think of you every time I get an update from him.